Ex-Goldman Director Sues SEC After Civil Charges

Goldman Sachs headquarters building in New York (credit: Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — A former Goldman Sachs board member has sued the Securities and Exchange Commission after the SEC linked him to a major insider trading case when it filed civil charges against him earlier this month.

Rajat Gupta said Friday in court papers that he denies all allegations of wrongdoing and “stands ready to mount a defense against each and every one of the commission’s charges.”

The SEC had filed an administrative action against Gupta. It says Gupta fed vital information about Goldman in 2008 to a one-time billionaire accused of insider trading within minutes of hearing confidential information from the Goldman board.

A federal prosecutor has said Gupta was a co-conspirator of a former hedge fund boss on trial in Manhattan.

The SEC did not immediately return a call for comment.

Meanwhile, a former Goldman programmer has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison for stealing secret computer code that enables high-speed trading.

Sergey Aleynikov, of North Caldwell, N.J., was sentenced Friday in federal court in Manhattan. He was convicted in December by a jury.

Judge Denise Cote said she was not lenient in her sentence of eight years and one month in part because Aleynikov never fully admitted his guilt and accepted responsibility. He also was fined $12,500.

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